


Bonsais and Baking and Bad Reviews

by SapphicScholar



Series: Director Sanvers Winter Warmers Fics [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Crack, Director Sanvers Warmth, F/F, Rotating POV, baking fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28406853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphicScholar/pseuds/SapphicScholar
Summary: "Here was ACooks out to ruin Maggie's day and her website’s reputation, sending her straight to the internet black hole known as page 2 of any search algorithm’s output. Maggie gritted her teeth as she read through the “review” again. “I was trying to make this as a surprise for this girl I like because, anyway, it doesn’t matter. Point is, mine looked nothing like the photos. This is a hard recipe, and you should have warned us about that. 1 star.”"Or the very cracky bad baker/food blogger/bad baker's helper triad fic!
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Lucy Lane/Maggie Sawyer
Series: Director Sanvers Winter Warmers Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2067333
Comments: 22
Kudos: 128





	Bonsais and Baking and Bad Reviews

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably my last entry for this very fun event (mayyybbeee one more after), since I should get back to doing the work I get paid for, but thanks to everyone who's been involved in organizing, participating, and reading/commenting! 
> 
> Inspired by that Tumblr post that makes the rounds every so often about how wild the reviews are on cooking blogs

Maggie fumed at the comment notification email sitting in her inbox. _Another_ one-star rating from ACooks. This one was on her latest post—her grandmother’s tiramisu recipe, adapted so that it wouldn’t feed a dozen hungry grandkids. She was pretty damn proud of herself for managing to get the right ratios, having learned the hard way that halving a recipe wasn’t actually the best choice most of the time.

But no, here was ACooks out to ruin her day and her website’s reputation, sending her straight to the internet black hole known as page 2 of any search algorithm’s output. Maggie gritted her teeth as she read through the “review” again. “I was trying to make this as a surprise for this girl I like because, anyway, it doesn’t matter. Point is, mine looked nothing like the photos. This is a hard recipe, and you should have warned us about that. 1 star.”

If she were one of those food bloggers who had hundreds and hundreds of followers reviewing her recipes each week, she wouldn’t mind so much, but she was lucky to get maybe a couple dozen reviews on a good day. And a one-star rating on almost every recipe really put a dent in her average. All because some jackass couldn’t figure out how to cook and wanted to blame anyone but themselves.

\---

 **Kara:** soooo did Maggie like the tiramisu?

 **Alex:** it was a fucking disaster.

 **Kara:** as bad as the mousse??

 **Alex:** no. just a regular 1 star. Like…a D. Lucy came over after to try to salvage it and said it tasted okay-ish.

 **Kara:** well that’s a huge improvement from the mousse!

 **Alex:** you’re less helpful than you think you are.

 **Kara:** maybe. But I hear that Lucy’s been verrryyyyy helpful

 **Alex:** Kara. She said that the kiss was a mistake. She heard about all my baking disasters from you and is literally helping me to flirt with someone new

 **Kara:** okay okay

 **Kara:** but also she didn’t say the *kiss* was a mistake, she said it was bad timing

 **Alex:** the breakup is no less fresh now than it was a month ago

 **Kara:** technically it’s a whole month less fresh

 **Alex:** this is why you had no friends when you first landed.

 **Kara:** I was new to this stupid planet. What was your excuse?

\---

Winn squeaked as an arm looped through his own and dragged him off his usual path from the DEO to the bus stop. Dammit. He knew he should have varied his walking route. Alex had specifically warned him about this. God, she was going to be insufferable about it if he lived.

He had his hands up before the robber could even ask. “What do you need?”

“Winn, dude, it’s me.”

Flinching slightly, Winn glanced over his shoulder only to find the NCPD detective who’d helped with a couple of DEO cases rolling her eyes at him. “Sawyer?”

“You’re not Alex. You can just call me Maggie.”

“Right. Um, what do you need?”

“I need your help.”

“Oh.” His shoulders lost some of the tension they’d been holding. “Is there a new case?”

She shook her head. “I, uh, look, this is kind of embarrassing, but I need your help for a…personal thing.”

“Um, yeah, okay.” He hadn’t realized that a few late nights spent playing Pokémon Blue on an emulator down in his office while they waited for updates on cases would be enough to qualify him for friendship, but he wasn’t going to complain about another woman who could probably kick his ass deciding she’d rather befriend him. “What’s up?”

She shook her head. “Not here.”

With a nervous laugh, he said, “You know, in training they taught us never to go with someone to a secondary location.”

“Good lesson for strangers. Luckily I’m Alex’s friend. Or something. I haven’t heard from her in ages.”

So, with a sigh, Winn let himself be led to a car. On the drive, Maggie began explaining the situation. “Okay, so here’s the thing. I run a blog.”

Winn blinked once, then twice. Wondered if this was going to be some kinky thing he’d really rather not know about.”

“It’s a, um, baking blog.”

“A what?”

“You heard me, Schott,” she practically growled. “Point is, some asshole troll keeps leaving nasty reviews. I know they’re local because, anyway, it doesn’t matter—something they said in one of their idiotic comments. But I need you to find out who it is so I can get them to stop. Or you can block their IP address or whatever it is you computer people do.”

“You know you can just…turn off comments, right?”

“If I can’t get the nice comments, what’s the point of even running this thing? Besides, I need the good reviews so my blog shows up when you look for recipes.”

“Okay…but I could also just make a bot and flood your blog with good reviews. That would help way more than—”

“No! I don’t want to cheat!”

He sighed and slumped further down in his seat. “Blocking the bad reviewers is kind of the same thing as cheating.”

“No, trust me, this person has to be a troll. Look at these reviews.” At a red light, she unlocked her phone, pulled up some screencaps, and thrust it at him.

The first one was on a recipe for something called _torta della nonna_. “I didn’t have whole milk or pine nuts, so I substituted some old hazelnut half and half and walnuts. Was disgusting. 1 star.”

The second comment was on a pizzelle recipe. The word sounded familiar, somehow, but Winn couldn’t recall where he’d heard it. “I don’t know what a pizzelle maker is, so I tried in a waffle iron. You said they cooked in 5-10 seconds, but this was a total mess—way thicker than the photo, not cooked through at all, couldn’t get the dough out of the grooves, so they ruined the waffle maker, too. This recipe owes my sister 40 bucks. 1 star.”

He could see Maggie practically seething in the driver’s seat. “Are you on the third one yet? Just wait!”

He flipped to the next photo and tried not to wrinkle his nose too visibly at the idea of vegan peanut butter mousse. Still, there was a lengthy comment to read. “Your recipe called for silken tofu. I don’t have any of that, but I searched online and saw that it was a meat substitute made with beans. I’m making this recipe for a vegetarian, so I figured I shouldn’t go with the chicken in my freezer”—Winn barely managed not to gag—“but I had some refried beans from nacho night that seemed like the right consistency. Tasted awful. Honestly fucking inedible. I don’t get all these great reviews. Maybe they like beans with peanut butter, but most people don’t. Gross. 1 star, but honestly I’d give it negative stars if I could.”

“Do you see?” Maggie practically screamed. “Who makes mousse with refried beans?”

He decided it was not a good moment to point out that making mousse with tofu also seemed pretty disgusting and instead just let out a sympathetic noise.

The next review was on a vegan scone recipe where ACooks had misread “oat milk” for “oatmeal” because “what the hell is oat milk??” They’d given it a more generous 3 stars because “I guess this one’s on me, but still…”

When Winn looked up, he realized they were in his neighborhood. “Okay, so…yeah, this person’s probably a troll. Or just…not that bright.”

“They need to be blocked forever. I’m stuck working this weekend, but on Tuesday, I’ll buy you pizza, and we’re taking this person down.”

Winn shrugged. “Alright.” At this point, he was rather invested in finding out who ACooks was anyway.

\---

Swooping in, Lucy grabbed the cup of flour from Alex’s hand. “I already added it, remember?”

“Hmm?”

“Eyes up here, Alex.”

Alex’s cheeks flushed a brilliant shade of red as she spluttered out an apology. “I—there’s some chocolate on your…um, chest.”

Glancing down, Lucy noted that there was, indeed, a small smudge of cocoa powder in her cleavage. Not that it would be noticeable to anyone not already looking there, but… No use reading into it. She’d given up on trying to figure out what went through Alex’s head ever since being kissed within an inch of her life, then apologized to the next day, ignored for a full week, then flirted with and thoroughly checked out while…helping her bake for some other woman. She shook herself out of it. Dwelling didn’t help anyone. The point was helping Alex to make something that was actually edible. Which meant not letting Alex near anything until they were at the decorating stage. Maybe not even then.

“Why don’t you go find us some music,” Lucy suggested, already eying the next three things that needed to be added.

By the time Alex was back, Lucy was able to hand her the already mixed dry ingredients. “Now I’m going to do the mixing, but I want you to slowly add this in, okay?”

“Got it.”

Lucy had to shove down the pang of fondness at how determined Alex looked, clutching the metal bowl and standing with a soldier’s precision as she eyed the larger bowl. She carefully tipped the bowl, sprinkling in the smallest amount.

“Little more,” Lucy said, grinning as Alex’s tongue peeked out the side of her mouth as she tipped the bowl once more.

“There ya go. That’s perfect!”

Alex beamed.

Soon enough they fell into an easy rhythm together, and Alex began relaxing, her shoulders losing the tension they’d been holding. “This is so much easier with you here.”

“I’m glad I can help.” And she was. Even if it was all for someone else’s benefit. Trying not to think about it, Lucy cleared her throat. “Why don’t you go get our cupcake tray, yeah? Pop a liner in each of them.”

Alex gave a small salute that earned her a roll of Lucy’s eyes. But at least she listened better in the kitchen than she did at the DEO, and soon enough, everything was ready to put in the oven.

While the cupcakes baked, Lucy called out for ingredients and whipped up the marshmallow frosting that would top the “hot cocoa cupcakes” that Alex had found on some random blog called Bonsais and Baking. Despite telling Lucy that there had been some “real duds” among the recipes, Alex had insisted that the blogger seemed sarcastic and funny and deserved another chance. (Lucy was fairly certain it was just because the blogger called herself a lesbian in her bio.)

After swatting away Alex’s hand for the fifth time, Lucy held up the electric mixer like a weapon. “Try again, and I’m taking your finger.”

Alex pouted, but Lucy shook her head. “Nope. Not working on me.”

“How will we know if it’s any good, though?”

“It’s powdered sugar, butter, marshmallow, and vanilla. There’s literally nothing in here that could taste bad.”

“You’d be surprised how bad things with good ingredients can taste.”

“Okay…but I made this one.”

“Luce,” Alex pleaded. “Let me taste it. Please?”

Before Lucy could say no, Alex had swiped her finger through the bowl of icing. Without thinking, Lucy leapt forward, grabbing Alex’s wrist. And suddenly they were grappling like they were back in the DEO gym, and then frosting was smeared across Lucy’s jaw, and Alex’s finger was in Lucy’s mouth, then Alex’s tongue was running along her jawline, and everything was spinning out of control.

“Alex,” Lucy gasped, feeling herself being hoisted up onto the counter as Alex’s lips and teeth traveled down her throat, trailing teasing bites and heated kisses along the length of exposed skin.

By the time Alex had made it back to her mouth, Lucy had forgotten all the objections she wanted to make. Things like: _don’t you like Maggie?_ And, _I like you too much to be your distraction until you two figure your shit out_. Because her lower lip was between Alex’s teeth and her legs were wrapped around Alex’s waist, and all she could think was that this felt like it had been a long time coming.

\---

On Sunday morning, Maggie woke up to a new comment notification from ACooks. “I thought these were gonna be different. I even had a friend come over to help. And I’ll be honest: they smelled really good! But it turns out frosting + a pretty lady is *really* distracting. Anyway cupcakes were burnt to a crisp, and I had to throw out my fifth smoke alarm of the year. 2 stars for the tasty frosting.”

Maggie sent a text to Winn: “Tuesday night. We’re taking this bastard down.”

\---

On Sunday night, Kara’s phone buzzed with a series of increasingly desperate texts from Alex.

_Help._

_I maybe fucked up._

_I made out with Lucy again_

_Yesterday_

_She’s just…really hot. And funny. And easy to be around_

_But we were making cupcakes for Maggie_

_And I still…idk I still like Maggie, like…that hasn’t gone away. And I still want to give her cupcakes (not these, holy fuck, they’re so burnt) and see her and talk to her and maybe kiss her and stuff_

_Which makes me the worst fucking person on the planet I KNOW_

_What do I do??_

_I mean Lucy probably still doesn’t wanna date, so I guess it’s fine??_

Figuring a text reassurance wasn’t going to cut it, Kara called. Alex answered after just half a ring. “Hi. Am I an asshole?”

“I mean, not for this.”

“Kara,” Alex whined.

“So you like two people, that’s fine. You know how you make sure you’re not the asshole? Talk to them. Both of them.”

Alex let out a loud groan. “I hate that.”

“Yeah, I figured you would. But you’ve gotta be honest with them. And maybe Maggie will say she just wants to be friends. Or Lucy will say she’s still not ready to date. And then you’ve got your problem solved. Or maybe they both wanna date, but they’re okay with not being exclusive. You’ll never know if you don’t talk to them.”

“Why does it sound like you’re reading from a script?”

Kara carefully closed her laptop where she’d been making some notes for herself. “I’m just that smart, Alex. Accept it.”

“If I promise to take your advice, will you talk to me about literally anything else?”

“Sure. Wanna hear about this new guy at CatCo?”

“Please.”

\---

On Tuesday night, Maggie sat and ate pizza and grumbled under her breath about ACooks while Winn typed on his computer, explaining that it was actually fairly straightforward to…she tuned out after that. She chewed on the pizza and tried to figure out what kind of person left weirdly narrative comments on random cooking blogs. And what she could do to get back at them. She let herself drift dreamily through various possible revenge scenarios. At least until Winn choked on his pizza, wheezing suddenly and looking even paler than usual.

“Winn? Do you need the Heimlich? Move away from my computer first!”

“Um, Maggie, here’s the thing…”

“What? What is the thing? Did you break my computer?”

He glared at her. “Do you think so low of me?”

“Just tell me what you found.”

“Fine. Well, the good news is, I did it! And the comments are, well, they’re coming from inside the house.”

“I’m not commenting on my own blog, Winn.”

“Oh, no, _you_ are not. Someone at the DEO is. Someone you know is.”

“Is it…you?”

“No. C’mon, who at the DEO has a name that starts with A and orders more takeout than should be humanly possible?”

Maggie let out a low groan as she dropped her head to the table. “Alex.”

“Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner!”

“Great. Just great. Alex is cooking my recipes and hooking up with some random lady and leaving me shitty one-star reviews. Love that for me.”

Winn gave her an awkward pat on the hand. “If it makes you feel any better, pretty much the whole DEO knows that she’s baking to try to impress you. She even got Lucy to come help her cook better.”

Maggie thought back to the photos Kara had tagged Alex and Lucy in, how annoyingly good they looked together. “It does not. But thanks.”

\---

After getting off the phone with J’onn about an after-hours attempted infiltration of a DEO computer, Lucy plugged an address into her GPS and headed for downtown National City. She called in a few agents for backup, coordinating their arrival time at an unassuming-looking brick building in the old West side neighborhood with a rusty fire escape that she stationed an agent at in case their perp made a run for it.

The front door was propped open, and Lucy led the two remaining agents up the stairs to the apartment three doors down on the right.

With a nod, she gave three loud knocks. Before she could announce who they were, the door swung open, and…oh.

“Maggie?” She’d only met her once in person, but she was as cute in real life as she was in the damn Instagram photos Alex had shown her a few too many times.

“Um. What’s going on?”

“A computer here accessed a DEO server remotely without permission.”

“Oh. Winn.”

“Winn?”

“It’s a long story.” Maggie rubbed at her forehead, and it was then that Lucy noticed the woman was dressed in fuzzy socks, a worn-looking white v-neck, and plaid flannel pajama pants.

“It’s fine,” Lucy said to the two agents behind her. “She works with us. Get Agent Suresh and head back to the DEO. I’ll take care of filling out the report.”

They weren’t about to argue with that logic, quickly taking off back down the stairs.

“I guess you wanna come in?” Maggie propped the door open a little wider.

“I do need to get all the information for my report.”

Maggie nodded and motioned Lucy inside. “There’s, uh, some leftover pizza. Not much wine left anymore, but…yeah, it’s there.”

“Are you okay?”

“Honestly?” Maggie let out a rough bark of a laugh. “No. But you should maybe ask your girlfriend about that.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

God, she and Alex really were a match made in heaven with their absolute failure to communicate. “Look, tell me what you and Winn were doing with the DEO servers.”

“Why not humiliate myself a little more tonight,” Maggie grumbled under her breath. “I run an anonymous baking blog. Some jackass has been leaving me awful one-star reviews that have nothing to do with my recipes and everything to do with their inability to cook or follow directions.” Lucy’s eyes slowly closed. Alex… “Anyway, I just wanted to block the person and maybe figure out who the asshole was, leave some shitty comments on their social media or something. Turns out it’s Alex.”

“Of course it is.”

“Yeah, well, guess you’d know that.”

“What?”

“Just…just tell me that you two didn’t know it was my blog.”

“What? Look, I don’t know why Alex has been leaving bad reviews of your recipes. I mean, she did say that some of them were duds, but—”

“Duds?” Maggie repeated incredulously. “She tried to substitute oatmeal for oat milk! And refried beans for silken tofu!”

Lucy grimaced. “You’d think as a scientist she’d be a lot more interested in precision…”

“You’d think!”

“Point is, Alex kept coming back to your blog because she had a total crush on the blogger. She likes you even when you’re anonymous. And is desperately trying to impress you by making things you’ve mentioned liking. Just…take the win.”

“She made out with you this weekend! She clearly likes _you_!”

“How do _you_ know that?”

“She put it in her comment!”

Lucy blinked at Maggie a few times before pulling out her phone. “We’re getting some answers.”

The phone was ringing on speaker before Maggie could say another word.

“Danvers,” Alex answered.

“Alex, I’m here with Maggie.”

“What?” Alex voice cracked on the word, squeaking up into levels she hadn’t hit since her years in chorus in middle school. “Um, what? Why?”

“Oh, it’s a really funny story, actually. Tell me, how do you think blog comments work?”

“What?”

“Just…let’s say you wanted to tell Bonsais and Baking what you thought of their recipes. How would that work?”

“Oh! You mean that little feedback thing? Where they ask you to rate your own attempt at making the thing?”

Lucy caught sight of Maggie dropping her head to the back of the couch with an audible groan. “Yeah…you know those are public reviews, right?”

“Um, what?”

“Yeah, and the ratings impact the recipe’s ratings.”

“That would be stupid. Why would a website be built like that? It literally says, ‘Tell me how yours turned out!’ Obviously the recipe is probably fine or whatever, but I want a note to myself if I ever come back again. And like, yeah, fine, Bonsais and Baking can see, because maybe it’d give her a good laugh, but…what do you mean ‘public’?”

“I should let Maggie explain. Or you might know her better as Bonsais and Baking, I suppose.”

“Hey, Danvers,” Maggie sighed.

“Excuse me.”

“I’m just as surprised, ACooks.”

“Oh. Fuck.”

“Yeah. Anyway, blame Winn for the fact that you can’t access my blog anymore. Or, ya know, blame yourself for leaving really douchey comments.”

“Shit. I didn’t know that… I’m sorry.” After a beat. “Oh my god, you heard about my refried bean mousse!”

“Yeah…I gotta know, did you really think you had to take a bite to know it was bad?”

“Okay, why the hell would you put tofu in mousse? I picked some up when I got groceries just in case, and it’s so gross. Didn’t taste at all like beans either.”

“It’s not supposed to! Also…did you eat it plain?”

“Whatever. This isn’t about me.”

“No, it’s about your girlfriend showing up at my apartment with a squad of agents because you were accessing a baking blog from your work computer.”

“I…”

“I’m not her girlfriend,” Lucy repeated, rolling her eyes.

“Well then ask Alex why she was writing all about your sexy frosting date on my blog!”

“It was to make cupcakes for you, the woman she actually wants to do more than just kiss!” Lucy shot back.

The tinny sound of Alex’s voice echoed through the phone speaker. “Maybe, um, maybe we should talk…”

\---

**[1 year later]**

“180 grams of flour,” Alex announced, beaming at the little scale readout. “On the dot.”

“Alright, now you need 134 grams of granulated sugar,” Lucy read from the recipe.

While Alex got to work zeroing out the scale and slowly adding sugar, Maggie wrapped her arms around Lucy from behind, nuzzling into her neck and whispering, “Who’d have guessed we just needed to turn the kitchen into a chemistry lab to turn her into an almost decent baker?”

“Still can’t let her near the electric mixer, though,” Lucy sighed. They both shuddered at the memories of their frosting-splattered kitchen walls. Though cleaning Alex off had been significantly more fun…

“Well, we all knew she was a messy bott—”

“Just because I’m measuring doesn’t mean I can’t hear you,” Alex grumbled.

“We love you for it,” Lucy said, reaching out, only to have her hand swatted away.

“Stop it! I’m concentrating.”

Eventually, they did manage to get everything measured, mixed, and poured into the cupcake tins in plenty of time for Kara’s annual winter baking extravaganza, which was really just an excuse for her to make every one of her friends bake something delicious for her to eat, after which she awarded various made up prizes. Alex was gunning for “most improved,” while Lucy was hoping to cinch “most creative use of fondant” for a gingerbread house she hadn’t let either of her girlfriends see yet.

Maggie’s prize, however, came in watching Alex dutifully tapping away at her keyboard later that afternoon.

“I tried to make these hot cocoa cupcakes again this year for my sister’s annual bake-off. Haven’t found out if I won a prize yet, but all the recipe amounts are definitely precise and correct, and it totally won’t be Bonsais and Baking’s fault if I don’t win. Also, frosting remains a very fun way to spice up date night at home. 5 stars.”

“Much better,” Maggie said, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of Alex’s mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Twitter and Tumblr @sapphicscholar (and actually making an effort to be on tumblr for a change again, since somehow twitter seems more full of drama and discourse these days haha)


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